People, we need to have a discussion about Jeromey Clary. A serious discussion.

First, and this is hilarious to me, nobody seems to care that Clary is one of the best team leaders on the San Diego Chargers. Lorenzo Neal is allowed to leave and everyone flips out, but Jeromey Clary isn't as good as Marcus McNeill and people want him burned at the stake.

Second, have you people heard of the salary cap? The salary cap exists so that the NFL doesn't turn into the MLB, with the richest teams fielding the best teams every single year. You can only pay a certain amount of players top-dollar.

The Chargers have decided to spend top-dollar on Philip Rivers, Antonio Gates, Kris Dielman, Marcus McNeill and Eric Weddle. Then there's the players right below that and the players even further below that. Somewhere down the line, you find Clary.

A Right Tackle has a few jobs. One, don't be expensive. Two, be good at run blocking. Three, don't get penalized a ton. Four, be slightly above "really terrible" at pass blocking. That fourth one might not even be important, because after the ball is snapped Rivers can very easily see if Clary has been beaten or not. The same does not ring true for some of the other players around him that he needs to rely on more, so they get paid more and have more jobs.

Jeromey Clary is an average Right Tackle, a clubhouse leader and is rather inexpensive. He does everything you could want from a Right Tackle. Using a high draft pick or spending a bunch of money to replace him, when his success/failure isn't really all that important, would be a waste of valuable resources.

There, now stop bitching. Or post you bitching in the comments. Music video after the jump.

Gotye - Smoke and Mirrors (via PoetryOfTheAir)